worth the wait

So last December, I spent two hours of my life in a virtual "waiting room" on the AXS Ticketing website waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting to get let into the "room" to purchase tickets to one of six nights Adele was going to perform at Staples Center this month. 

As an LA Kings season ticket holder, and someone who as spent more money than I care to admit at Staples Center since it opened in 1999, I was more than slightly annoyed by this "waiting room" process put in place by the owners of the Kings, Staples Center and the craptastic AXS Ticket purchase site in an attempt to beat online ticket purchasing bots. 

An hour in, I actually started to hate them even more than I already hate Ticketmaster (which is a LOT). But I finally, miraculously got out of the waiting room and my max of four allowed seats popped up... in Section 314, row 8. I haven't sat in the 300 level of Staples Center since 2001. For those that haven't been to Staples Center, that's the top section of Staples Center, about 20 rows and three levels of luxury suites above my excellent Kings seats. Yes, I am a Staples Center snob. I was NOT pleased. And I now really hated AXS' ticket system more than I hated Ticketmaster (have I mentioned that is a LOT?). 

But I bought the tickets anyway, and tried for another hour to get better seats on another night. No luck. Lots of people complained on social media they couldn't get tickets at all... in addition to also proclaiming their hatred for the AXS "waiting room." So I buried my rage and downloaded my tickets and waited eight months for the concert to happen... hoping that Adele wouldn't blow out her vocal chords again and have to cancel the tour like she did on her last tour.

Well, August 10th finally arrived and here was my view from section 314... 

... and while I was very, very far away from the stage, it didn't end up mattering because Adele sounded AMAZING (of course) and the concert was AMAZING and I had a great time with my parents (who I took for their Mother's and Father's Day gifts) and my Adele fanatic-friend Daryl.

A lot of these vocal divas camp in front of a microphone and just sing. And Adele freely admitted she doesn't dance (while telling a story about why she's not performing at the next Super Bowl). But what she lacked in dance moves, she made up for with storytime... she had a story about almost every song she sang... some funny, some serious. (Fun Fact of the Night: The producers of Skyfall convinced her to do the theme song by asking her how old she was at the time. [Reminder: Her albums to date are all named after her age at the time she wrote them.] Her answer: 23. Their response: This is the 23rd Bond movie. Deal done!) 

Her fun personality won the night. She called three young girls up on stage to take a selfie with her early on after she noticed them trying to get photos of themselves with her on stage in the background, and also posing for three different photos for their three different moms' cameras. She was super-chatty (even apologizing for being so chatty) throughout the whole show. She smiled and waved to fans in between belting out lyrics. And it all just made everyone who already loved her love her more. 

This is the stage in the back of the floor that Adele first appeared on, rising up through the center at the beginning of the concert (singing "Hello..") and was lowered down below at the end of the regular set. She was smuggled under this mini stage and out from under this mini stage in a large rolling equipment case. I saw it roll in and 2 minutes later the show started, and I saw it roll out when she finished singing "Set Fire to the Rain."

The woman sitting in front of me thought I was crazy and the case wasn't big enough. Then I reminded her we were sitting four stories above said equipment case and of course it looked small from where we were. She realized I was right. (Duh.)

This is from the acoustic part of the show.. Adele performed "A Million Years Ago," "Don't You Remember" and "Make You Feel My Love" with just 2-3 musicians on strings and her amazing voice.  Beautiful.

And here are some of the videos I took to remember the amazing-ness. Enjoy! (Thank goodness for giant video screens... even if her head is half cut off because we were so far above the top of the stage  ;)

The Finale..

Here was the set list:

• Hello
• Hometown Glory
• One and Only
• Rumour Has It
• Water Under the Bridge
• Skyfall
• Million Years Ago
• Don't You Remember
• Make You Feel My Love
• Send My Love (to Your New Lover)
• Sweetest Devotion
• Chasing Pavements
• Someone Like You
• Set Fire to the Rain

Encore:

• When We Were Young
• Rolling in the Deep

the best three months

So, three months ago this amazingly awesome little love bug came into the world and changed our family forever.

This is Kaden Michael, my as-of-today three-month-old nephew. He lives in Las Vegas with his mom, my little sister Kari, and his dad Lorenzo. And I have been extremely remiss in documenting his amazingness here. But I am going to let myself off the hook for lack of baby blogging because I've been too busy hanging out with him whenever I can, showing off photos of his cuteness to anybody and everybody, and spoiling him with cute outfits and musical sing-along play mats. (I also hereby freely admit that his first Christmas and first Birthday gifts are already purchased and stashed in my guest room.)

I've been a pseudo-auntie to a few (well at least 7) of my friends' kids over the last 12 years, and I love those kids a lot, but it's nothing like what I feel for Kaden. I've started driving four hours through the desert just so I can sit on the sofa and hold him. When my sister texts a new photo of him, it immediately brightens my day. When he gets fussy on Facetime, I want to go to him and comfort him. And I am already planning for his first LA Kings game in the 2020-2021 season when he's four. (He, of course, already has a Kings onesie and a Bailey binkie, but by then he will have a kids-size Drew Doughty or Anze Kopitar jersey. He may live in Vegas and they may be getting a hockey team next year, but he it going to be raised a Kings fan and will understand icing before his 8th birthday... mark my words. )

Here are a few of my favorite of the 125+ photos and videos I have of him on my phone. We're so lucky to have this little guy in our lives now :)

1-day old in his Foo-rific fashion, courtesy of Auntie Kim

The photo that drove my dad to buy a 2nd house in Vegas to be closer to Kaden

Happy Kaden on my visit to Vegas last weekend (Auntie Kim just changed his poopie diaper ;)

LOVE! #cheeks

game of thrones - part deux

So after this last season of Game of Thrones ended on June 26th, I felt like -- for the first time in six seasons -- I finally understood what was going on... sort of. (Probably because they'd finally killed off enough of the extremely large cast of characters that there were fewer people to figure out.)

All I really could tell you prior to the end of Season 6 was:

• Sean Bean really doesn't have very good luck in fantasy dramas.
• Dany and her dragons are awesome (except when they're charring goats and small children).
• If anyone invites you to a wedding on this show, don't go!
• Bran Stark -- who I don't really even remember from Season 1-5 (except for when Jaime pushed him out that window at the end of Episode 1) -- is apparently very important.
• Jon Snow has the best luck of any character in television. (Well, except in the Season 5 finale...) 
• These people sure are fighting a lot for what looks like an extremely uncomfortable chair.

So I decided to binge-watch the first six seasons again to see if I could actually make sense of all the "houses" and who is on who's side and why or why not. Here are some of my most eye-opening "Oh yeah.. forgot that" (or in more cases... "Huh? I TOTALLY missed that the first time") moments from watching it again:

• That 3-eyed Raven has been around since Episode 1... who knew?
• So have the White Walkers (I swear I don't remember them since before in Season 3).
• So have clues about Jon Snow's real parentage...
• Arya's had her "list" since her dad... well ... you know... in Season 1. Poor Arya. (And poor anyone whose name is on that list, even though they totally deserve it. But she's scary now... I'm worried about her)
• The Red Wedding was Robb Stark's own fault... and his mother warned him.
• The crazy lady with the giant hole in the floor of her tower is Catelyn Stark's sister. (Which explains the army coming to save the day at the end of "Battle of the Bastards"... well, that and creepy Littlefinger being obsessed with Catelyn and then Sansa).
• Littlefinger took care of Joffrey... I forgot who had that honor. Gotta give him props for that too. (But that's enough.)
• Jon Snow was working with the Wildlings back in like Season 3 or 4? And actually climbed UP and OVER the WALL?!?!? (Yeah don't remember that AT ALL.)
• The Hound isn't all bad, he just acts that way... likely due to his emotionally (and facially) scarred childhood. 
• Jamie Lannister isn't either... (Hey, he helped Tyrion escape. And he saved Brienne from a gladiator bear.)
• A LOT of these characters cross each other's paths a LOT. And when you're paying attention (which apparently I wasn't the first time I watched this) the things they say and do make a LOT of sense.
• The 100-year-old blind monk adviser guy at Castle Black is a Targaryen?!?! I thought they were all dead except for Dany and ... well, you-know-who (and if you listen to fan theories perhaps another very short you-know-who... 3 dragons. 3 riders.)
• Ser Jorah (aka Dany's right hand knight) is actually a Mormont from Bear Island?!?! AKA related to 10-year-old badass "Bear Island knows no king but the King in the North, whose name is Stark" Lady Lyanna Mormont?? How did I totally miss this the first time? (Seriously. Multi-tasking is bad people. Bad.) 
• That Sparrow that ended up following the little bird into the catacombs and setting off the big boom is the Lannister cousin Cersei slept with when Richard Baratheon was still alive back in Season 1?? Yeah, totally missed that too.
• Bald weirdo Varys is seriously Game of Thrones' version of the game master from The Hunger Games. 

Other thoughts from the final episodes of Season 6...

• "Hold the Door!" ... still heartbreaking.
• Dany and her dragons ... still awesome.
• Jon beating Ramsay's face to a pulp ... still made me cheer out loud.
• Sansa and the starving hounds ... still the most satisfying moment of the series so far. Karma's a bitch (literally).. and then you die :p 

hi my name is kim & i'm a starbucks addict

Change the word "coffee" to "chai tea latte" and yep... this is pretty much all true.

24 Things Every Hardcore Starbucks Addict Knows To Be True

Plus here's #25: You start cursing the Starbucks app loudly inside your car when it won't take your mobile order and you're forced to actually stand in line to order
(= me this morning)